The Bounty Hunter's Baby Surprise. Lisa Childs

powerful.

      While she was naive, Lillian had never been romantic or foolish. She’d never believed in love at first sight—until that moment. But it had been like she’d always known Jake and he her.

      Of course she had—she just hadn’t realized it at the time, especially since he’d given her a different name. He’d called himself Jacob Williams. If he’d told her Jake Howard, she would have recognized him as the ruthless bounty hunter her family feared. She had felt a flicker of fear at that first meeting—because she’d somehow instinctively known her life was about to change forever.

      Her baby kicked her belly, and she moved her hand from the steering wheel to rub over the bump where a little foot pushed against her abdomen. “Shh...”

      She needed to calm down; she couldn’t risk her anxiety causing any harm to her baby. She had to think.

      Where could she go?

      If Jake came looking for her, he was bound to figure out where she was hiding. But he wouldn’t come, would he? After what he’d done, how he’d deceived and hurt her, he couldn’t have the guts to ever face her again.

      That was what she was counting on...

      She’d also been counting on that flash drive clearing her of all charges, though. And now the flash drive was gone. What the hell was she going to do?

      Should she break into the lawyer’s office and look for it? She stared up at the dark building and considered it. What would breaking and entering charges add to her embezzlement sentence? Too long to risk it.

      She had to think of something else. But first, she needed some rest. Because she didn’t trust Mr. Kuipers, she’d ignored the judge and the bail bondsman’s order to not leave the state, and she’d gone to Florida and the place her grandmother owned but hadn’t been able to use this winter. To get back in time for the court date in River City, Michigan, Lillian had driven all night.

      If only she’d called her lawyer before she’d made the trip...

      But she’d waited until she’d been back in Michigan only to be told that the flash drive had never arrived. The lawyer had to be lying. Lillian refused to consider that another person she’d trusted had let her down.

      She blinked back the tears stinging her eyes and focused on the street in front of her. She wasn’t far from her apartment, but she’d given that up six months ago, right after she’d been bailed out of jail.

      She should have given up the place sooner. All it had done was remind her of Jake, of how he’d cooked for her the first time they’d met, bumping into each other in the tiny kitchen, bodies brushing against bodies, that awareness making her tingle everywhere...

      It had reminded her of how he’d grinned at her, his dark eyes sparkling with amusement. She’d thought he was the one man who appreciated her goofy sense of humor. But he’d probably only been amused because he was making a fool of her for falling for him when he was just using her.

      And because of how he’d used her, she would always have a reminder of him now. She rubbed her hand over her belly again, and the baby moved beneath her touch.

      His baby.

      But she didn’t want him to know that, not after how he’d treated her. She didn’t want their child to have a father like him—one so ruthless and uncaring.

      He couldn’t find her.

      Nobody could.

      * * *

      “I want her dead!” Tom Kuipers shouted the words at the men gathered before him. Some of them flinched. A couple of them looked away from him.

      They might be appalled at his ruthlessness, but they wouldn’t turn on him. Unlike Lillian Davies, they knew what happened to people who crossed him. They were never able to cross anyone again.

      He raised his picture of Lillian Davies, blown up from her employee ID badge, and waved it at the group of seven or eight men gathered in the middle of the warehouse between the rows of building equipment and supplies. It was after hours. No one would overhear this meeting. And no one would repeat the contents of it.

      He trusted these men because he knew they feared him. He wasn’t a large man or particularly muscular, and at fifty-six, he was no longer as young as he’d once been. But he was so much more powerful than he’d ever been. And they all knew it.

      “She might have altered her appearance.” If she was smart.

      And Lillian Davies was actually smarter than he’d realized. He’d thought she was so ignorant and trusting. And he had counted on her unsuspecting nature when he’d set her up to take the fall for all that money going missing.

      But she wasn’t tumbling down as easily as he’d thought. Instead of showing up in court for the trial that would have sentenced her to prison, she was fighting back.

      And he could not tolerate that.

      “Whoever kills her and provides me with proof of her death will get a huge bonus for their loyalty,” he promised. It was, like so many others, a promise on which he would probably renege.

      Tom had already spent more of that money he’d stolen than he’d wanted to. He had plans for it, plans for a new life.

      But they didn’t know he was lying. Just like Lillian once had, they trusted his word.

      “Do you have any idea where she is?” one of the men asked him.

      He glared at the idiot. “If I knew, she’d already be dead.” He would have taken immense pleasure in doing it himself for all the trouble she’d caused him. Not only had she not taken the fall for which he’d set her up, but she’d recently tried to extort money from him, too.

      Did that damn flash drive even really exist?

      Once she was found, he would have her searched for it, just in case.

      But first, she had to be found. Then she and the flash drive would both be destroyed.

      Lillian Davies could not hide forever.

       Chapter 2

      Jake leaned against the door frame as the elderly woman foraged around her living room. He could barely see over her boxes and stacks of magazines and plastic totes that were so full the lids wouldn’t even snap into place. One day he would probably see her apartment again—on the news or on an episode of Hoarders.

      “I know I left her box over here,” she murmured from behind one of the stacks. “She left in a hurry and left quite a bit of stuff behind.”

      Of course Lillian had left in a hurry. She had been eluding authorities. She’d had no intention of showing up for that court date. He was surprised that Seymour had been so surprised. She was a Davies. And Jake had warned him.

      The landlady shuffled back with a cardboard box in her hands. She peeled back one of the tabs and peered inside. “Yes, this is Lilly’s stuff.” She reached inside and said, “Aha, that’s why you look so familiar. I found these pictures of you in her place.”

      Jake took the strip of photos she held out to him. He had a strip of nearly identical photos at home. He and Lillian had taken them in one of those silly photo booths on the pier near the Lake Michigan shoreline. She was smiling up at him in every photo but the last—in that one they were kissing.

      His stomach muscles clenched as he remembered leaning down and brushing his lips across hers. She’d tasted so damn sweet, like the cotton candy he’d bought her.

      “Those were actually in her trash can,” the woman remarked, then shrugged.

      Of course the old hoarder had gone through Lillian’s trash. But it was fortunate for Jake that she had. He noticed some other letters inside the box and, put together with that strip